Long Hours In Making An Animated Film

An animated movie can easily spend several months in production. It is not uncommon for filmmakers to put in many hours each day during the process. This includes filming, editing, writing, producing, and marketing your film!

Filming an animation movie takes a lot of time. You will need to find a way to deal with the constant flow of inspiration and deadlines. A producer or director may offer creative input into the next scene or sequence, but there are no guarantees that it will happen every week.

It is also important to remember that you will probably be working outside of normal office hours. Most people do not work long hours like this unless they have a job where they experience such shifts.

There is also the matter of paying for food, housing, and transportation while you are away from home. All of these things can add up quickly if you aren’t careful!

With all of these factors considered, it is easy to see how lengthy the filmmaking process can be. But what about the other parts of the equation? What happens after the shoot is over?

After the camera stops rolling, the editors begin to stitch together the footage into scenes and sequences. This is called animating, and it is definitely a tedious task. Luckily, technology has made this part much more efficient.

Also, most films now have at least one person who does final sound mixing and music composition. This too is done efficiently using software and plugins.

Fund your movie

Once you have gathered enough money, it’s time to start thinking about what kind of film you want to make! There are two main things that determine this - genre and format.

Genre is like deciding where to go for lunch- you choose something close by so you don’t spend too much time looking for it. A generic “action movie” would be choosing between action films (Die Hard, The Fast And The Furious), thriller movies (Closer, Gone Girl) or sci-fi/fantasy stories (Star Wars, Avatar).

Format is like picking your favorite food- it depends on how well you know the chef! If you love their pasta, then order some pasta dishes every day for a week and see if they offer any recommendations as to what type of sauce goes best with it. You can do the same thing with an artist’s style - watch some of their work and see what styles appeal to you and learn from that.

Now, which one should we pick? Let’s say our goal was to make an animated feature movie. What genres fit that bill the most?

Action - Almost all Pixar movies fall into this category, along with many Disney productions. An example of an action movie with a story is Ratatouille, where Remy gets his chance to show off his culinary talents.

Write a script

Now that you have your main characters, settings, and themes, it’s time to start writing! Start by taking some quality time to write a script. A screenplay is made up of individual scenes that are connected together in order to tell the story.

Screenplays usually begin with a scene setting up the rest of the movie. This can be anything from opening with a conversation between two people or walking into a room to establishing mood and tone. After this, the writer writes a short narrative fragment (also called a sentence) to create a new piece of content.

This content can then be fleshed out into a full length chapter or sequence. When writing these individual scenes, try to use as many of the following templates as possible so you know what format to go into.

Get your cast together

The next step in creating your movie is finding your main characters! There are many ways to do this, but one of the most efficient methods is having each person bring a few people they know who fit the bill as their character.

This is called open casting, because it does not have a specific job title or position like acting for a TV show or film. It can be more casual so anyone with these characteristics can come and audition.

By doing this before you actually write any scripts, you will save time writing down all the different versions of what characters say and how they behave. You also get to choose whether to hire them or not, which helps your production team grow!

Another good way to find your main characters is by asking around. People often talk about their favorite characters and why, and some may even tell you things about yourself that you never knew existed.

Plan out your production

Now that you have a script, are in pre-production, and have lined up filming locations, it is time to start planning how to make your film!

The first thing you will need to do is decide how long you want your movie to be. This is important because most likely, the more money you have, the longer you can shoot. The length of the movie depends on many things including whether or not you plan to release it immediately after filming, if it sells well, or if it gets enough attention to warrant a wider audience.

Your budget also plays a big part in determining how long you can afford to spend creating your movie. If you have a small budget, then you must be careful about how much you allocate for shooting time. You may only get one chance to take great pictures before they run out of cash, so make sure you’re happy with what you produce!

On the other hand, if you have a large budget, you can probably go into extra cost-saving modes like using off-the shelf equipment instead of professional grade. Or buying low quality footage and enhancing it later.

Shoot your movie

Now that you have a script, got some filming equipment, and know what kind of animation style you want to use, it’s time to start shooting!
Start by choosing a genre or format for your film. This will determine how long your movie should be.

A horror movie would typically be one to two hours depending on how many minutes there are in each scene. A comedy could be anywhere from ten minutes to twenty minutes longer.

If your movie is closer to being completed than it is to starting production, then you can choose to shoot shorter segments or “takes” as they call them. These short pieces can easily be filmed over several days or even weeks if necessary.

Shooting a whole feature length movie at once isn’t very common anymore unless you’re actually trying to do that! So don’t worry too much about this early on.

Edit your movie

The second major thing that animators edit is the script. There are two main reasons for this. One is so you can fix or improve upon what has already been written, and the other is to add new material.

As mentioned before, screenwriters write scripts for filmmakers to make films. As such, there’s a lot of back and forth between the two.

Filmmakers may re-write parts or even start filming without having read the script first. This is very common in projects with tight deadlines.

But as soon as they do get time, the writers have moved on and will often not review the film’t hauls until months later. And even then, they don’t always pay close attention to everything!

This is why it’s important to go through the process of editing your own movie.

You should try your best to take your writing seriously and devote time to polish your work. This includes looking at the script from both writer and viewer perspectives to see whether things made sense and if the scenes were engaging enough.

It also means taking your time to organize and structure ideas and conversations properly. When you feel like you’ve run out of ideas, consider adding some more detail to something we've talked about before or doing research into related topics.

Finish your movie

After you have finished writing the script, it is time to start filming! While some of this may seem like a drag, there are many ways to make it easier for yourself. Starting at the very end, we will discuss strategies to help you find the right balance between spending time on the project and quitting before doing anything significant.

In fact, one of our most important tips here can be summarized in two words: Don’t Quit.

Don’t give up! Even if you feel that you don’t know enough about filmmaking or you aren’t sure how well you would handle certain situations, keep trying until you reach that place where you can walk away and say you gave it your best shot.

No matter what, even if you just decided today was the day you would quit, you would still have spent several weeks writing a screenplay and now you can move onto the next phase which is actually producing the film.

Market your movie

After deciding how long you want to make your film, next is market it! This can be tricky as everyone’s timing for a project is different, but there are some universal rules that apply.

First, start posting about your film online now. Create accounts on all of the major social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.) and upload pictures, promotional materials, and videos. Also, create a free profile on most websites like Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu to promote your film.

Your best bet will be creating fan pages on social networking sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat where people can interact with you and discuss films.